France the Land of good Living.
Importance of the menu.
English writers are often on the look-out for subjects of accusation against the French (this attention is reciprocal), and they generally hit upon immorality. May I give them a hint that may be of use, at least in affording the refreshment of change? Why do they not accuse the French of gormandism? There are a hundred proofs of that vice for one of the other. It is visible everywhere in France, and in some parts of the country it predominates over all other pleasures of life. Most well-to-do French people who live in the rural districts and are excessively dull find a solace and an interest twice a day in the prolonged enjoyments of the table. There is no country in the world where so much thought and care, and so much intelligence, are devoted to feeding as in France, and the reward is that the French govern the world of good eating, and their language is the language not of diplomacy only but of that far more important matter the menu. They will talk seriously for an indefinite length of time about the materials of dinners and their preparation. When the English newspapers give an account of a royal feast, they do not tell you what the distinguished personages had to eat, but French reporters give the menu in detail. Some French newspapers present their subscribers with a menu for every day in the year, others announce what will be the dinner at a great hotel.
Gourmand and Gourmet.
The Glouton.
The Goulu.
The Goinfre.
The love of good cheer in France has all the characters of vulgarity and refinement. In former times gourmand meant a judge of eating, and gourmet a judge of wine. We find those interpretations still in the dictionaries, even in Littré and Lafaye, but custom has given the words a new significance. Gourmet is now universally understood to refer to eating and not to drinking. Gourmand has acquired a lower sense between gourmet and glouton. The gourmand of the present day is a passionate lover of good eating, who gives it inordinate attention, and usually eats more than is good for him. The glouton is the quite unintelligent animal feeder who stuffs himself like a pig; and there is a still worse word, the goulu, which means the voracious man who throws eatables down his throat. There is also goinfre, the man who is very disagreeable to other people in his eating, which he does to excess and dirtily.
Temperance of the true Gourmet.
Thackeray a Gourmet.